Avatar: A new Begining
by Labryinthus
Summary: Ariel and her old friend Sam travel to Pandora and face new challanges, new alliences and terrible dangers. Rated T for violence in later ch.
1. Cryo:Landing

A/N: This is my first Avatar fanfic and my second ever fanfic so please review and let me know what to improve on and what you think of this idea. Note that it was written at 1 o'clock in the morning so some of the grammer and spelling may be a little off. Thanks for reading and, again, please review. Healthy critisism is appreciated. I do not own Avatar but the characters are mine.

I awoke in a metal case and had no idea where I was until an orderly come and pulled the latch. I slowly floated out of the makeshift bed and into a large bay where many other disoriented people were emerging from the same kind of metal chamber. I remembered suddenly how we were en route to a distant planet called Pandora and how I was to be a member of the Avatar program that was being run there.

I pulled my long dirty blonde hair into a ponytail that fell to the middle of my back and slowly made my way towards a row of lockers. I found the one with my first initial and last name on it and opened it when a voice came over the loud speakers saying that newly awoken personnel should find the mess hall and get something to eat because we were about five hours from departure to a smaller ship and eventually to Pandora itself.

I pulled a spare set of clothes out of the locker and changed in to them. After I had on a pair of tan cargo jeans and a plain green tee-shirt, I found the mess hall and ate until I couldn't eat anymore.

I went back to the cryo bay and opened my locker again. I pulled out a book about the history of Pandora and the native population called the Na'vi. I found them to be completely fascinating; being ten feet and blue could have that effect of people. I lazily floated around the bay, reading my book and passing time until the shuttle came to pick us up.

As I made my way around the bay, I ran into some of my old friends. Sam, one of the new Avatar program scientists, was my best friend and somehow managed to secure a bedchamber in the main part of the ship so he didn't have to stay in the cryo bay.

"Hey Sam!!!" I called to him when I saw his bright red hair bobbing around the lockers.

"Is that Arial I hear?" he called from his floating position. I made my way towards him and gave him a big hug.

"You lucky sonofabitch, what are you doing in cryo?"

"Looking for you, actually. I wanted to tell you that I managed to get you an earlier flight to Pandora then you thought but you have to get your stuff together, like now."

"Cool, just give me two minutes. Where should I meet you?" I asked

"In the loading docks on the tail end of cryo, it's full gravity over there so be prepared." He bobbed off towards his chambers to get his things for the flight.

I cleaned out my locker and put it into a sack that I slung over my shoulder. It was fairly light because you didn't really get much time to yourself on Pandora. I floated over to the loading docks and waited for Sam to get his things. As soon as I passed through the door, all the weight came crashing down on me and I fell to my knees. As soon as I adjusted to the change, I stood back up and sat in one of the plastic chairs. Finally Sam came through the door and, just like me, fell to his knees with the change of weight.

"Wow, that's gonna be hard to get used to," he informed me.

"Yeah, I know. What time is this shuttle anyways?"

"Well, look." I turned my head towards the docking station and saw a team of pilots coming through the doors.

"Anyone on flight 103, please come with us," said a black haired pilot with a commanding tone.

"Is that us?" I whispered to Sam.

"Yes," he whispered back. We stood up and followed the group of pilots along with about forty other passengers who were on their way to Pandora.

"Well, here we go," Sam said to me as we passed through the doors and boarded the shuttle that would take us to our new life.

* * *

About eight hours after we woke up in cryo, or I did anyway, we landed on the very green planet of Pandora. We had to wear oxygen masks because the air was lethal to humans, but not to the Na'vi. The colonel that was in charge of passengers to and from Pandora was instructing us of where we needed to go and who to report to.

Apparently, Sam and I were to report to the head to the science department herself, that would be Doctor Wendy Sanders. I myself had never met her but Sam had told me all about her and how she can be a real bitch sometimes. But he also spoke about her with a sort of reverence that can't be rivaled by any child over their hero. He really admired her work and he said the only reason why she was such a bitch was because Major Alderson had her pulled out of the local Na'vi village, where she had bonded with many of the children and was teaching them our ways.

The local Na'vi tribe is called the Omaticaya clan and they live in a village that is located inside of a gigantic tree that is 325 meters tall and 122 meters wide. They call this the Hometree. I have read about all the different clans and tribes of Na'vi that live on Pandora but this is the closest one to the base that RDA has established.

RDA is the military operation that is running the Avatar program and they are looking for a new source of energy for earth. So far, the main thing that they have found is a little grey rock that is called Unobtanium. It apparently sells for a lot of money back home and they are hoping this will solve the energy crisis that has emerged.

I ponder this as we walk through the winding halls of the main base, Sam knows better than to annoy me when I'm in this kind of stupor so he just steers me and makes sure I don't walk into anything.

We eventually arrive at the main science office and all I can see are tanks that are filled with some kind of liquid and hold what look to be Na'vi people but they are actually our Avatars. I walk over to one of the tanks and see that inside is a Na'vi being that looks just like Sam.

"Hey Sam, come look at this," I call to him. He walks over and looks into the tank. "This must be your Avatar," I say.

"Wow, it looks just like me only huge and blue."

"Yeah," I say as he walks away to look into a different tank.

"This one must be yours," he says from a couple tanks over. I jog towards him and, sure enough, there is an Avatar inside the tank that looks like an exact replica of me. "Do you know how they do it?" Sam asks.

"What, make them look like us? No I don't."

"They take your DNA, that's what the blood sample was for, and they mix it in with some DNA of the natives."

"Wow, that sounds really complicated."

"Yeah, well they've informed me that our Avatars are almost ready so we should go to the link bay and get ourselves set up with the initial link.

"Okay, lets go."

A/N: Again thanks for reading and please review and let me know what you thought.


	2. BlueLagoon:Kidnap

A/N: Here is the second chapter. It is substantially longer than the last one but I'm not sure if the grammer and spelling are very good. Again it was published at 2:30 in the morning so it may be a bit sketchy in some places. Enjoy

* * *

We made our way towards the link bay, well Sam did, I just followed, and checked in with Doctor Sanders. She was an auburn haired woman that was tall and somewhat wrinkled even though she only looked to be in her late thirties. She greeted us with open arms.

"What the hell are you two looking at, don't you have somewhere to be? No I guess you don't, do you? Well don't just stand there gawking, my assistant will help you with the initial link. Wait before you go and screw anything up, I would like to help miss blondie here. What's your name girl?"

"Arial, Arial Goldbaum." I said with as much conviction as I could muster.

"Well Arial Goldbaum, I guess we're kinda glad to have you here. We've been needing some fresh blood that actually knows what they're doing. How much about the natives do you know?" she asked me.

"Well, I know that the closest village to this location is inhabited by the Omaticaya clan and they live in a giant tree that is called Hometree. They are hunters that cover most of the surrounding forests. Their leader is Tin'Rilu and his mate is Selona, they also have a young daughter named Kelrynu and an older son named Gen'Jana. They have a rite of passage for young warriors that involve climbing to the Ikran or banshee nest and making the connection with their banshee. The connection is made by a queue that runs down their back and it holds neural tendrils. The Na'vi are around three meters tall and have cyan skin that has bioluminescent dots that are particular to the individual. They have a very special deity called Eywa. They celebrate interconnectedness by telling stories, singing songs and making crafts. Is there anything else you want to know?" I asked after I finished.

"Yeah, I want to know how the hell you know all this stuff when even the most experienced scientists couldn't even figure out how to pronounce the word Na'vi?"

"I have been studying this stuff ever since I found out I was chosen for this project," I explained to her.

"Oh," was her reply. "Well let's get you set up for the initial link." She walked over to a bed looking thing which I assumed was the link bay and she climbed into it. "You'll be in the one next to mine and once you go through diagnostics, come and meet me in the field."

"Okay," I said as I climbed into the same kind of bay as she did. A doctor came by and told me to just clear my head and I would be a little disoriented after I woke up. He closed the lid on the bed and I tried not to think of anything. All of a sudden I was awake on another bed in a different chamber and I was surrounded by other doctor personnel who were wearing the same oxygen masks as I had been earlier and I panicked. Wasn't the air lethal to humans? And if they were wearing masks, why wasn't I? Then I stood up a bit too fast and got dizzy but as I sat back down I realized that I was about four feet taller than the doctors.

"Just calm down," they were telling me. "You're just a little disoriented."

"Yeah okay, I'm okay now."

"Can you touch your thumbs with each of your fingers for me please?" a woman asked.

"Yeah," I did as she asked and then they had me do some leg exercises.

"Okay, you can change into these clothes and then just go through that door to the courtyard."

I changed into a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a plain blue tank-top and went out the door to find doctor Sanders. I found her standing with a bunch of other tall blue people, just talking and joking around with each other.

"Doctor Sanders," I said as I approached.

"Ah, I see the initial link took very well," she told me. "Usually it takes hours for the link to be transferred. You must be a very good subject."

"Yeah, that's what the doctor said."

"Well then, let's test out your new body. It looks strong."

"I feel strong… can I wrestle with someone!?"

"Focus, for now we will travel to the Blue Lagoon."

"Okay, let's go." I said as a Scorpion landed in the field east of us, I could hear it with my larger-than-normal ears.

We ran towards the helicopter-like machine and climbed in. Our pilot turned around and I was surprised to see it was a woman who was fairly young, no older than 25.

"Welcome to Pandora Air," she said in a mock flight attendant voice, "my name is Jenna and I will be your pilot for the duration of your flight. Please buckle your seatbelts because we don't want anyone falling into an abyss and getting me thrown off the planet. Thanks."

"Hey Jenna, I'm Arial. Nice to see someone has a sense of humor on this planet besides me and my friend Sam," I told her in a semi-quiet voice so Dr. Saunders wouldn't hear, hopefully.

"Hey cool, you're lucky you get to be in the avatar program and don't have to be a grunt. It sucks. I signed up for avatar in the beginning but they rejected me because I had no scientific background," she told me as she started to lift us off the ground. "Alright, here we go."

I went back to my seat next to Dr. Saunders and buckled the belt. "So what is the Blue Lagoon anyways?" I asked.

"It's the RDA's Park. It's the safest way to see Pandora, from behind a closed fence. But lately they've been having some problems keeping the fence closed so we're going to see what we can do to help. They think the natives are trying to breach the fence and sabotage our equipment but I'm not so sure. I guess we'll find out," she explained.

We passed many interesting landmarks that I had only read about in my books like the stone arches and colorful plants but I was not prepared for the beauty of the mountains that floated above the surface of the planet. The people that had been here for a while had come to know them as the Halleluiah Mountains, as Jenna told me. We flew so close to them, I could have reached out and touched them if I had wanted to, but I didn't.

The floating rocks are the main source of Unobtanium on Pandora but there are also other places to find it. The problem that the RDA is trying to solve with the avatar program is the fact that the Omaticaya Na'vi clan is sitting on the biggest deposit of the rock that we have been able to find on the planet and it's our job to try and get them to move.

We reached the Blue Lagoon within the hour and once we were off the Scorpion, we were put to work. They sent me and a team of four other avatars to fix a break in the fence and see if there were any indicators of how it broke in the first place. We were sent into the forest with guns, I thought this was supposed to be an enclosed space, but whatever.

As soon as the fence came into view, something in the air didn't feel right. The other four avatars went ahead and I stayed behind to see what the matter was. The canopy overhead was mysterious and very green; it hardly let any light through the thick branches. The branches were so thick, in fact, that four Na'vi could be standing shoulder-to-shoulder and be completely hidden from my sight.

As soon as that thought came into my head, I decided I would rather not fight so I acted as if they were watching, and put my gun down.

But apparently they were watching. As soon as I stood back up, a figure jumped from high up one of the trees and just before it hit the ground hard, it grabbed a vine and broke its fall. The figure was a Na'vi man, well not man, more boy. He looked to be in his late teens, early twenties and he still hadn't lost that boyish look yet. He had a loincloth that was tied around his waist but he also had on a kind of cloth shorts, which looked like they were just a couple bands of hide that wound around his legs. He also had an armored shoulder pad that had some spikes on it and it looked well used.

He narrowed his eyes at me and pointed to my gun.

"Why did you put the weapon down?" he asked in a kind of strained English.

"I don't want a fight," I explained to him.

"Your people don't want us inside their fences, why is this?" he asked in the same manner.

"This is the only way we can view your world without being attacked by Na'vi or animals."

"You are a Dreamwalker, yet you do not act like the others. You are kind." He circled me as if he were inspecting me.

"I would like to learn more about your people but I don't know if they will think of me the same way you do," I told him. I desperately wanted to get into the clan and learn firsthand what it was like to live in a Na'vi village but I didn't know if they would trust me as this young hunter had.

"You think well," he told me, "I would teach you our ways if you could prove you aren't like other Tawtute."

"How could I prove that?" I asked.

"I will have to come with me to Kelutral and consult with the Tsahik. She will decide a task for you."

"I don't know if I can leave the base," I said. I really did want to see Hometree for myself but I really didn't want to get in trouble with Dr. Saunders. Suddenly, the boy lifted me off the ground and swung me high into the tree. He followed me up and we were standing at an opening in the canopy.

"You are not leaving, you are being taken." He clicked his tongue and suddenly a red and orange Ikran appeared. He jumped on and pulled me on behind him.

"We have a word for this on Earth," I told him.

"What is the word?" he asked.

"Kidnapping."

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading. You know what to do, there is a little blue button down there. Push it and review.


	3. Hometree:Captured

A/N: Sorry it took so long to post this chapter but I've had midterms all week so far and I just got a break today. So here it is.

We rode the Ikran for what felt like hours. We finally landed outside what I can only describe as a massive tree. If they had to, the Omaticaya could fit thousands of people in there. The boy who kidnapped me led the way up a spiral that was like a stairway in the core of the tree itself. He got off about halfway to the top which is still a substantial way from the ground level. He walked towards a woman Na'vi who was standing in front of a kind of fire pit that was made from stones.

"Pelun uniltiranyu mi Kelutral?" (A/N: Roughly translated as "Why is Dreamwalker in Hometree?")asked the old woman.

"Poe pxan swok fmetok fte poe tsun slu teya Na'vi," (She is worthy of sacred test so that she can become full Na'vi) he answered.

"You want to become one of the Omaticaya, young one?" she asked me in the same kind of strained English as the boy spoke.

"I want to learn about your traditions and your history, if that means becoming one of you, then yes," I told her.

"In order to do so, you must pass a test to prove that you are worthy of our trust."

"What will I have to do?"

"I have not decided yet, come back to me in one day and by then I will have decided on a task for you. Do not tell any Tawtute of your test, it would cause many problems."

"I won't. In fact, do you mind if I just stay here, in Hometree. People might be asking questions as to where I am right now and I'd rather not answer them."

"Yes, I think that will be okay. Find a Tawtute that you can trust and have them bring your human body here so that it is protected."

"Yeah, I can do that," I told her and then she dismissed me. I got out my radio and tried calling Jenna. She answered on the first call.

"Hey Jenna, it's Arial."

"Hey, where the hell have you been, girl?!? Everyone's looking for you and the camp is in an uproar," she said loudly over the small transmitter.

"I'm safe, could you do me a favor without telling anyone?" I asked.

"I guess it depends on the favor," she said in an uncertain voice.

"I'll tell you when I wake up. Go into the link bay and make sure no one is around when I do wake up, I'd rather not be bombarded by military personnel about where I've been."

"Okay, but you are going to tell me where you've been, right?"

"Sure," I answered her vaguely.

"I'll try to clear out the lab. I think a nice fire diversion should do the trick," she said with an evil tone in her voice.

"Just try not to actually burn anything down, please," I warned her.

"Yeah, yeah. Just give me ten minutes and I'll have the link bay cleared out for you."

"Thanks Jenna. I owe you one," I told her. I waited for the time, sitting on one of the woven mats that made a ring around the fire pit. The boy who kidnapped me sat on the mat next to mine and the woman Na'vi stood at the front. I assumed she was the Tashik of the clan, Selona. But if she was Selona, then the boy who kidnapped me must have been Gen'Jana, her son. He was the "prince" of the Omaticaya clan. He would be taking over once his father died. I wondered why he would choose to kidnap me. He had no reason except that I asked him to show me his ways.

The ten minutes were up and I waved goodbye to the Na'vi and was suddenly awake in my human body. Jenna was standing over me and had a huge grin on her face.

"I set a fire," she said with a smirk.

"You didn't burn anything down, did you?!?" I was genuinely worried that I would be in big-ass trouble if she did.

"No, I just lit a match and held it up to the fire alarm. It worked like a charm, like all my plans do," she told me with a bit too much pride in her voice.

"Okay, we need to find the small PLB and attach it to your Scorpion. That way we can keep my human body near Hometree."

"Well, they won't be able to track us over there because of the superconductivity. The Unobtanium makes sure of that. There's a plateau that's about a half kilometer from Hometree. We'll put you down there."

"Sounds like a really good idea Jenna. I'm glad I have you here. While I'm getting the PLB, could you find Sam and tell him where I'm going. He might want to join us."

"Yeah, sure, I'll find him. Where exactly would he be?"

"He's probably in the science labs doing something with a highly volatile explosive. Just make sure not to sneak up behind him because he might actually set something on fire, like your hair or his hand."

"Thanks for the warning," she said with a smug look on her face. She left the link bay out the west door towards the science department and I headed towards the hangar to look for a small Portable Link Bay, or PLB. We had to have at least two links in there just in case Sam did decide to tag along.

I reached the hangar and found about twenty grunts pointing GS-221s at me.

"Crap," I mumbled under my breath as I raised my hands above my head. "This isn't gonna go over well."

A/N: Please review. Next chapter up maybe this weekend if I'm lucky.


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